One Whole Word

[...out of blog slumber..]

Tullian Tchividjian has recently posted on "The Pastoral Practicality Of Law-Gospel Theology". I'd encourage you to read it. He describes really helpfully how his (Lutheran) Law-Gospel theology gave him the resources to preach into a horrible pastoral situation of adultery. However, in doing so he used what I think is a really unhelpful bit of Lutheran terminology. He says:

I emphasized and explained to our church was that we are not a one word community (law or gospel) but a two word community (law then gospel).

Surely we know that there is but one Word of God - Jesus Christ revealed in the Bible by the Holy Spirit. However, that word is a sentence. Not two separate words, but a coherent whole that is structured "law BUT Gospel". Or as Paul puts it, "through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law" (Romans 3:20-21).

If there were two words, then "the Law" would be the word of God on its own. But, if "the Law" is just part of the word of God, then if you are just preaching "the Law" then you are not preaching the Word of God at all.

So lets have the whole counsel/word of God... lets have Jesus, crucified and risen for us. No mere 'commands and promises', but the one mediator Jesus who comes to us as a command and a promise.

Moses and his veil

Listening to: Sufjan Stevens: The Age of Adz

Moses did not wear his veil when he was speaking to YHWH or when he was speaking to Israel the words of YHWH (Exodus 34). When he was acting as mediator he was unveiled, when he wasn't he was veiled.

The veil is like the curtain of the temple separating God from humanity, hiding his glory because of our sinfulness. Like the Tabernacle this hiding of God was both a judgement and a grace. It was judgement because it was a barrier between the God of life and us, but it was a grace because the glory of God is lethal to people on whom guilt still rests. That is why the people were afraid when they saw the glory (v.30), just as they were afraid when the law was given at Sinai (20:18).

Following Christ's death God has torn the curtain and the veil is no longer put in place by God because the glory of God is unveiled in the face of Christ. However, Satan veils this glory (2 Cor 4), and for people whose minds are hardened the veil lies not over the face of Christ but over their hearts (2 Cor 3:14).

Why should we not be afraid now that God is unveiled to us? Why can we be confident (v. 4) and bold (v.12) in approaching God? The reason is that (just as for Paul and his ministry), our sufficiency comes from God (v.5). We are made sufficient, by the Spirit (vv. 6, 17, 18) who Christ pours out on us following his death, resurrection and ascension.

It was not that we didn't see God in the law. There was glory there (v.9), but the glory in the face of Christ is superior because it permanently brings the Spirit, life and righteousness (vv.6, 9), rather than temporarily bringing the letter, death and condemnation.

Because Christ is now the mediator, not human beings like Moses or Paul, we don't proclaim ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord (4:5).

With thanks to Bill Dumbrell and John Piper, who may not agree with all this. I still don't understand 2 Cor 3:13 though. Help gratefully received.

Pastoral discernment

I heard Mark Mattes say in a talk not long ago that the art of distinguishing law and Gospel is not a matter of syntax but of pastoral discernment.

I experienced that powerfully this week when I shared with a friend Philippians 1:6: "I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ".

It was a verse that had really encouraged me and I hoped would encourage them. They appreciated it, although felt that in my words there was a hint of condemnation for the negative feelings they were experiencing. Fair or not, I knew that they needed to hear the Gospel, but I delivered the wrong goods.

On the other hand sometimes I can fail to realise what goods need to be delivered at all. I can think that someone needs to hear a command when they need to hear a promise. On other occasions I can think someone needs to hear a promise when they need to hear a command.

It is a hard skill, as Oswald Bayer comments:

Luther refers to the discovery of how to make the distinction as a breakthrough...But such freeing does not have the character of an experience that one, as such, can leave behind and that one can keep at the ready and used at will. It remains an art and a skill, a blessing that is experienced when one can distinguish properly in a very tough situation.

(p. 67, Martin Luther's Theology)

There has been a lot of blog discussion recently about the role of the law in sanctification and I have found Dane Ortlund's reflections very, very wise and perceptive. Among them he observes that "ministry context plays a part in how we parse out the gospel [Also] personality--specific, unique, wiring; our own personal bent--plays a role [as] does personal history and background".

Books and blogs loose this pastoral element which is one reason why I am slow to recommend a book that has helped me to a person unless I feel I know them fairly well. One Christian may love a book and another hate it, and that can have nothing to do with its worth.

So I appreciated that when Dave Bish experienced Joe Thorn's book as "more like law" he didn't generalise that to saying that the book was law. To some other people I am sure they will experience it as Gospel.

This is not to say that everything is relative because I do not think words can mean whatever you want them to mean. But if both law and Gospel are personal address then the person being addressed is important as well as the words used. Tone, context and the character of the person speaking are also massively significant.

The structure of sharing the Gospel

This is an attempt to explain some of the convictions I've gained about the structure of our attempts to share the Gospel with people. Because it is mainly about structure it only skims over the actual content which is the exciting part. It also misses the power which is all found in asking God the Father to act through his Word and Spirit. It also misses the context which should be a loving community of sinners with changed lives! It is also quite hastily written, so please forgive the errors, but feel free to pull it apart in a constructive way.

1. Prologomena - death

As we are both actors and those acted upon the law shows us both that we are sinners and sufferers. So we should connect with unfulfilled desires and with painful experiences as well as with guilt.

There are three ways in which this bad 'news' can be part of preaching:

1. Direct communication
• For example you can say, "you are a dirty rotten sinner" or "don't you feel really empty and purposeless without God?" This may be useful sometimes, but generally it is counter-productive. I think too much direct communication is what has given law-Gospel preaching a bad name.
2. Indirect communication
• To get past people's defences tell stories, make cultural references and make people so think that they end up telling themselves the bad news:
• Nathan told David a fable so that he convicted himself (2 Sam 12).
• Bizarrely God gave people a law which said "do this and live" for the purpose of increasing and convicting people of sin! The law may well be "indirect communication" par excellence.
• Tim Keller paints this beautiful picture of what friendship should be and his hearers are broken because as they apply it to their own lives they realise that it is something they have only tasted and barely experienced.
• Kierkegaard in The Point of View for My Work as an Author explains that you cannot communicate directly to one who is suffering under a delusion because "direct communication presupposes that the receiver's ability to receive is undisturbed". Instead you have to "deceive [!] a person into the truth", which means "one does not begin directly with the matter one wants to communicate, but begins by accepting the other man's illusion as good money". To natural legalists the law does just that, but it heightens our illusion to such an extent that is snaps.
3. Present beforehand
• Simeon Zahl comments that "the ‘Law’ is being preached by the Spirit as ‘negative’ experience long before the hearer enters the pew". People carry with them guilt and suffering that weighs them down before they hear anything explicitly Christian.
• GK Chesterton said that "original sin... is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved". It is not essential for the 'bad news' to be declared because it is already known and experienced (Romans 1). As Rob Bell has commented, many people already know an awful lot about hell from their experience

Although I believe in death before life, and bad news before good, I hope this shows that we should not simplistically or insensitively 'lay down the law' at the beginning of any sermon. Instead indirect communication and God's prior alien work can take precedence.

2. The Gospel - The source of Life

The bad news is our point of connection, but in contrast, while there are echoes and similarities of the Gospel in our experience, there is nothing that matches the "love unknown" of the Gospel. Because of this it must be declared and carry the life it promises with it.

The Gospel has three dimensions:

1. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit...
• The identity of God is the Gospel. God gave us not just to eternal life, but eternal life with him, which is good news only because he is so lovely.
2. ...acted in salvation in Jesus Christ who was "born of the Virgin Mary...crucified [but] On the third day he rose again [and] ascended into heaven"...
• The act of salvation is the Gospel. God did not just symphathise with us in our plight, but did something about it.
3. ...for us.
• That God and his acts are all directed in love towards us, and not someone else, is the Gospel.

People often seem to emphasise only one of the three and so risk losing the whole Gospel in the process. It is an useful thought experiment to think through which movements/teachers are strong on which point, and which we are weak on.

3. Our goal in preaching - The living of life

Again, in preaching we can aim for just one of the following and fail to have a holistic view of salvation.

1. New hearts
• Christianity is an affective faith. We love our God and desire to be with him.
2. New heads
• Christianity requires us to think differently about ourselves, our world and our God. We think through what it means that Jesus is Lord over every square inch of this world.
3. New hands
• We go out in words and deed as part of Christ's Gospel mission and in neighbourly love.

Again, it is an useful thought experiment to think through which movements/teachers are strong on which point, and which we are weak on.

Finding Nemo and God's alien work

'Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me,

"Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.
See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to break down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant."'
(Jer 1:9-10)

Would you describe that as a good summary of the work of God and the work of his ambassadors?

I can think of a whole host of reasons why you wouldn't. Some better than others.

But I am convinced that God doesn't just work through 'good news', but through 'bad news' as well. Equally I'm convinced that God doesn't lay on the 'good news' so he can later catch you with the 'bad news' or that the 'bad news' is hidden within the 'good news'. Instead I believe God always works his alien work of 'bad news' in order to do his proper work of declaring 'good news'.

This is the pattern of all God's saving work in this fallen world.

If we reflect I think we can see this in our own experience and in profound pieces of art like this scene from Finding Nemo:

Ultimately though we see it the story of the crucifiction and resurrection of Christ.

David Zahl in this 14min reflection on Jeremiah 1:10, draws on the scene from Finding Nemo and episodes from real life to show that God really is present in his alien work, despite how alien that thought first appears. I encourage you to listen to it.

This is how he ends his sermon, summing up "the message of grace":

Heavenly Father we thank you for this message. Lord, we pray that where we need to be torn down that you would overthrow us and overpower our controlling tendencies. Lord we pray also in the places where we are torn down and bereft and tired and depressed and lonely that you would build and plant just as you have done ultimately in your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.

A few things to like about David Zahl:

• He likes people;
• He understands people;
• He likes pop culture;
• He uses pop-culture well;
• He's Evangelical-Lutheran-Episcopalian, which has to be rare;
• And most importantly he understands why Pixar make the best films.

Tim Keller on Friendship - a model law/Gospel sermon

It may sound strange, but I think Tim Keller preaches the best law/Gospel sermons I have ever heard.

He is a great preacher in many ways, not least because most of his sermons take you on a journey. What is not obvious is that this journey is often law/Gospel. It is not obvious because he does it better than the simplified version preached by many who would explicitly say that they are preaching law and Gospel (particularly in including the power as well as the penalty of sin, the attractiveness of the good life that 'the law' describes, deeply rooting everything in our cultural and existential experience, climaxing in Christ but in a way naturally connected to the topic and all without jargon).

The theme of friendship in the book of Proverbs is probably the last place you would expect to see the law/Gospel structure, but that is an indication that we haven't really realised the depth of it. Keller's sermon on a selection of proverbs (17:17; 18:24; 25:17,20; 26:18-19; 27:5, 6, 9, 14, 17; 28:23; 29:5) is excellent for its content alone and I would encourage you to listen to it just for that. But if you do listen to it, consider also the law/Gospel journey he takes you on.

I'll attempt to outline his sermon using his own language in black and then show what lies behind what he is doing in my words in blue:

[THE LAW - describes the way life ought to be. The law is good as it shows the creation standard of how we should live. Therefore we should delight in it and live it out]

1. The Uniqueness of Friendship

Friendship offers something different to other relationships (familial, romantic) but in most societies is pushed out. Particularly in our busy and mobile culture.

2. The discovery of a friendship

Friendship requires a common foundation which is a common object of love. Friendship cannot be forged alone, but must be discovered.

3. The forging of the friendship

Once discovered the friendship needs to be forged (i.e. strengthened)

The 4 marks of true friendship are:

• Constancy - availability, even in the difficult times
• Carefulness - emotional connection given voluntarily meaning you mourn when they mourn and rejoice when they rejoice
• Candour - we love our friends enough that we say difficult things for their own good even though it costs us
• Counsel - Two way: Openness about yourself as well as rebuking and advising them

Conclusion of points 1-3

discovery + forging + time = friendship [the law is nothing if not logical, input the works and out comes the result]

[THE TURN - most good narratives have a 'turn' (I think the term exists in plot analysis, although wikipedia refers to it as 'the climax'). I can't think if I have heard this term anywhere talking about law/Gospel, but I think it is helpful to distinguish this moment when the Law ends and the Gospel come in. Keller is a master at this. At this point the law is fully understood and its weight felt. Up to now it has been presented as advice and a model. What this deeply attractive model has been doing to us is then brought to the surface and spelt out.]

Introduction to point 4

Having painted this picture of a perfect friendship two things happen:

1. [Firstly the law reveals the power of sin, and shows us how we suffer under Sin in contrast to the way the world ought to be] We have a feeling of longing - Friends are taken away faster than we can make them so we do not have all the friends our hearts need.
2. [Secondly the law reveals the penalty that is due us because we are part of the problem as we don't just suffer but cause suffering] We find the profile crushing - One of the reasons we don't have friends is because we fail to be great friends ourselves. We find it difficult to be transparent and we are reluctant to give the gift of emotional connection.

[THE GOSPEL: the solution is Christ and his substitutionary death and resurrection for us]

4. The power of friendship

Where then do we find the power to be the friends we need to be to have the friends we need to have?

[Jesus fulfils the law as he lives the perfect life, and he does it all for us:]

John 15: Jesus calls us his friends. But he is the perfect friend who lays down his life for us.

Genesis 1-3: We walked with God (a Hebrew way of describing friendship) but we turned our back on him. Most friends we do this to would turn on us in response but God didn't do that.

[Jesus died suffering the power and penalty of sin so that we could be freed from both:]

The cross: Christ lost his friendship with God so that he could have friendship with us. He went to hell for the sake of his friends.

[As he took our death now he gives us his life to us so that we share in all he has - inc his friendship with God:]

As we now have friendship with God, all our friendship eggs are not in the human basket so we are liberated to be the friend that we ought to be.

[In the church we taste the new creation that he has bought for us:]

God, in Christ, also creates the church where we share a common object of love, and yet are different so have 'constructive clash' (iron sharpening iron), so we can experience rich friendships in the church now.

[Only bit I think Keller is missing is a pointer to the future hope of perfect friendships with God and other people]

The law/Gospel dynamic

Lutheran spirituality, properly speaking, is not some static state of bliss, but a dynamic oscillation between lows and highs, knowledge of sin and knowledge of forgiveness, repentance and assurance.

(p. 28, Gene Veith, The Spirituality of the Cross)

I often have trouble explaining Lutheranism to other Christians. This is probably mainly my poor verbal communication skills, but I think it is also because most people have a static view of the Christian life.

Perhaps they see one movement at their conversion, but even that is a transfer from one static position to another. In contrast Lutheranism always sees God doing something to us with a purpose.

This law-Gospel dynamic is one of the fundamental features of Lutheranism and something I bang on about so much because I now also see it as fundamental to how the Bible works and my whole existence. However, I now prefer now to talk about death-life, because it emphasises God's purpose in the law/Gospel, is more comprehensive, avoids confusion about biblical v. systematic theological terminology, is more clearly storied and most importantly also roots it more in union with Christ.

One thing I want to clarify from the quote though is that it is not a circular motion, where high leads to low before low leads to high. The 'low'/death happens as a consequence of the experience of sin and suffering in this old creation. The 'high'/life is eternal with no dark side to it. The constant oscillation is a result of our current situation as simul iustus et peccator living in the now/not-yet. One day the dynamic will change.

The rhythm of life is a powerful beat

"The Word of God enters history both as judgement and as power of renewal. This two-beat rhythm is characteristic." (p. 120, CH Dodd, The Bible Today)

The Bible is a book with two main characters. The Actor and the Acted-upon. God is the ultimate Actor although he works through his creation, and particularly his image-bearers. Creation, and particularly Humanity are then the Acted-upon.

God (and those he works through) act in two main ways toward the Acted-upon: judgement and grace, destruction and creation, law and Gospel, or death and life.

The Actor and Acted-upon are present in all of life and all the Bible. The Act itself is always either death or life.

Jesus Christ unites in one person Creator/creation, Actor/Acted-upon. This is an incredible act of loving condescension and it is done to change the rhythm of his Action.

With Jesus there is a change in the natural rhythm of Creation post-fall. When THE Actor becomes the Acted-upon his power explodes the Act and starts something new. Whereas before the rhythm was always: life->death, life->death, life->death. He makes it death->life!

OT teachers often point to the fact that the 10 commandments start with a record of God's grace in saving his people from Egypt. Or they point out that God's grace is shown in our very creation. Grace is the foundational context and beginning of all God's dealings with us. So many argue, like Karl Barth, that we should really talk about Gospel and law, not Law and Gospel. That is fair enough in some ways, and actually it reflects human experience.

We are given life and given a wonderful law to live by, but then we sin and die. That is the rhythm of life as we know it. But the Gospel is more than the gift of life and relationship with God, it is the gift of new life and restored relationship with God through death. There was life in the old rhythm, and there is life in the new rhythm. But the new rhythm is the one we really want to grasp. It is the new rhythm that we want to see start weaving its way into our lives.

The new rhythm is jarring, and hard to get the hang of because it is so alien. We may even think that it sounds almost perverse. But that rhythm is going to take over from the old completely because the act of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection was utterly comprehensive in its scope:

• It is an individual moral thing: we put to death sin and putting on righteousness (Col 3)
• It is an individual physical thing: our body dies to be raised to new life (2 Cor 5:1-4)
• It is a corporate thing: we die to ourselves to bring life to others (2 Cor 4:11-12)
• It is a cosmic thing: the old heavens and earth will be burnt up and a new heavens and earth will replace it (2 Pet 3:10-13)

"If the witch understood the true meaning of sacrifice, she might have interpreted the Deep Magic differently, for when a willing victim who has committed no treachery, dies in a traitor’s stead, the stone table will crack and even death itself will turn backwards" (CS Lewis, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe)

Theological prolegomenon

This is all a bit niche interest, although it is pretty sweeping in its scope. It is a useful survey of two different responses to the Enlightenment critique of natural theology:

Prior to the Enlightenment, Lutheran scholastic orthodoxy used the concept of the natural knowledge of God to demonstrate God's existence. The Bible, by way of contrast, was regarded as a supernatural source of supernatural revelation. When this scheme was subjected to the critique of the Enlightenment, the consequence was that language about God became irrelevant to genuine knowledge, and the pathway was cleared for modern secularity. But Luther's theme of the law as the antithesis of the gospel had the potential of escaping the Kantian critique. Thus Lutheran theology would have in the category “law” a prolegomenon to the gospel which could make the transition from pre-modern to modern culture without giving up its essential proclamation. If "law" means whatever calls us into question before God, then we can see it functioning as prolegomenon in theologians as diverse as Theodosius Harnack (d. 1889), Werner Elert (d. 1954), and Paul Tillich (d. 1965), as well as in the work of contemporary Lutheran theologians Gerhard Forde and Robert Jenson.

Karl Barth's response to the critique of the Enlightenment and to the Liberal theology of the 19th Century was to reject the idea of prolegomenon altogether. If grace is revelation and revelation is grace, then the antithesis between law and gospel simply disappears. The revelation of God, whether law or gospel, is gracious.

(pp. 414-415, Walter R Bouman, "The Concept of the 'Law' in the Lutheran Tradition" Word & World 3/4 (1983))

The whole article is fairly good. I think the author is right that there are strengths and weaknesses in both responses.

The terrifying and comforting Triune God who is love!

1. Why the loving community of the Trinity is terrifying

The Father has loved the Son by the Spirit for all eternity. Before we were born the three persons of the Trinity were dancing and conversing together singing the praises of one another. They couldn't love each other more.

...and we killed the Father's only Son.

His wrath will be devastating (Mark 12:1-9).

2. Why the loving community of the Trinity is comforting

The Father has loved the Son by the Spirit for all eternity. Before we were born the three persons of the Trinity were dancing and conversing together singing the praises of one another. They couldn't love each other more.

...and the Father gave us his relationship with his only Son when he sent his Son to die and raised the New Adam from the dead; and the Son gave us his relationship with the Father by calling us brothers as he queued with sinners to be baptised by John and went to die between two robbers; and the Spirit has caught us up into this eternal loving community by breaking into our hearts and opening them to God.

We rejoice, and by his Spirit we intensely and eternally love the Father and Son.

What is the difference?

1. is the Trinity expelling foreign objects and destroying them.
2. is the Trinity including foreign objects in Christ and transforming them.

1. is the Trinity acting understandably.
2. is the Trinity acting incomprehensibly in Christ crucified.

1. is the Trinity acting in the Son's divine nature.
2. is the Trinity acting in the Son's hypostatic union.

1. is the Trinity speaking to us.
2. is the Trinity speaking to us by speaking to the Father in Christ.

1. is God in his eternal being, our act apart from Christ, and his response.
2. is God in his eternal being, his act in Christ on our behalf, and our response.

1. is thinking about the Trinity from the outside - looking in through the windows.
2. is thinking about the Trinity when we've been brought in from the cold.

1. is law.
2. is Gospel.

1. is death to us.
2. is life to us.

The difference is not whether we are talking about the Triune God who is love or some other God.

The loving community of the Trinity is never good news apart from Christ going to the cross for us.

Forcing into a unity

Many arguments about theology, and particularly apologetics seems to be about where we start. For example, when talking about God do we start with the Trinity because the concept 'god' we come with is a Procrustean bed which will prevent us ever having a true understanding of God, or can we start with our flawed concepts and refine and reshape until we get to a correct understanding?

Oswald Bayer summarises the alternative we are often presented with:

Does theology start with a particular concept in order to demonstrate its universality, or does it begin with a general indeterminate concept in order to fill it with a specifically Christian content?

He says both alternatives, epitomised by Barth and Schleiermacher respectively, share in common the belief that there is a unified reality that we can know now. Bayer argues that on the contrary God encounters us now in distinct ways which cannot be overcome except in the Eschaton. He lists these as:

1. "through the opposition of the law that points its accusing finger at me, convicts me of sin, and hands me over to death;"
2. "through the promise of the gospel, in which God himself speaks for me, indeed take my place in Jesus Christ;"
3. "through the assault of God's incomprehensible, crushing hiddenness that radically contradicts the gospel and is more than merely an effect of the law";

As human beings we are constantly trying to create an all-encompassing unity in God, or our theological system, but while this unity must "be believed [it cannot] also be conceived" by the mind.

If we speak of a "unity" in connection with law and gospel, life and death, judgment and grace, it must be clear that this is meant in a strictly eschatological sense"

... of course, where Barth is correct is in recognising that the Eschaton has been brought forward in the person and work of Jesus Christ - so we can look for unity in him, as well as at some indeterminate point in the future.

Calvin and Luther's anthropology of the Christian

Some interesting selections from Mark Seifrid's article "Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth: An Introduction to the Distinction between Law and Gospel" that relate to discussions among some blogs about whether we are simul iustus et peccator (e.g. here and here). I've collected some links to Mark Seifrid articles here.

In such passages as Gal 5:17-26, "flesh" and "Spirit" do not appear there as capacities or qualities of a unified human person, but two different descriptions of the whole person. The old, fallen human being in Adam exists along with the new creation that God has made us to be in Jesus Christ. We must hasten to add that the relationship between the two is unequal. Our sinful self, which is incapable of faith and obedience to God, has been crucified with Christ (see, e.g., Gal 5:24-26; Rom 8:7-8). Although our fallen person, "the flesh," remains present until the end of our earthly life (Rom 7:24), that fallen existence is present now only as a conquered reality. [...]

The Christian life consists in our "putting to death" our former self [i.e. us as "sinner"] by our new self [i.e. us as "saint"], present in the Spirit who dwells in us (Rom 8:12-14; Gal 5:16-17).

As is the case with Scripture and our understanding of God, so it is with us for Luther: the unity of our person lies outside of us in Jesus Christ. We grasp it now by faith, but it is only in the resurrection that it shall become visible. Calvin regards regeneration to effect a new state within the human being, which is partially present and active. The "flesh" likewise is present as a power that exerts partial influence on us. [...] Luther, as we have seen, finds a radically different anthropology in Scripture. The old, fallen creature exists as a whole alongside the new creature, who is likewise a whole.

The temporary nature of the law-gospel antithesis

"the antithesis between law and gospel is not an end in itself. It is not a theological ultimate. Rather, that antithesis enters not by virtue of creation but as the consequence of sin, and the gospel functions for its overcoming. The gospel is to the end of removing an absolute law-gospel antithesis in the life of the believer. How so? Briefly, apart from the gospel and outside of Christ the law is my enemy and condemns me. Why? Because God is my enemy and condemns me. But with the gospel and in Christ, united to him by faith, the law is no longer my enemy but my friend. Why? Because now God is no longer my enemy but my friend, and the law, his will, the law in its moral core, as reflective of his character and of concerns eternally inherent in his own person and so of what pleases him, is now my friendly guide for life in fellowship with God"

(italics original, p. 103, Richard Gaffin, By Faith, Not by Sight: Paul and the Order of Salvation)

I like that, although I don't fully agree. I think that he is right that the purpose of the second use of the law is to drive us to the gospel, which enables us to return to the law and use it in its third use. But for the Christian who is both the old man and the new man, we need to use it both as enemy and friend.

Compare Timothy Wengert commenting on Article six of the Formula of Concord:

faith in Christ truly makes all things new, even our relation to the law and works. To be sure, there are "works of the law" (par. 5). There are threats and coercion: "Do this or else!" The unbeliever and our own flesh must be forced [...]

But think how our of place this coercion sounds in the language of love (par. 6). If the beloved says, "Kiss me!" what kind of answer is "Do I have to?"

[...] To be sure the law remains the law (par. 7). The Ten Commandments contain enough for us to do to last a lifetime. However, when the law hits the old creature - whether in the unrepentant or in the flesh of the believer - it can only threaten and coerce. But when the believer, as God's new creature of faith, hears the law, all threats drop away, and there remains a willingness that comes not from ourselves (we cannot make ourselves willing), but from God. Then we hear only the voice of the beloved, and there is no coercion, only faith and love.

(p.99, A Formula for Parish Practice)

The doctrine of the Trinity at the end!

Glen Scrivener recently posted a great post on why when doing theology we should start with the Trinity, not with any general teaching about God. I must admit I've been largely sold on this over the last few years, and found that while people may not practice it, nobody ever seems to disagree with the basic idea that the Trinity is where we should begin.... that was up until very recently, when I came across a confident broadside against it in the most surprising place.

Oswald Bayer notes that starting with the doctrine of the Trinity "is the pattern that is followed by an ever-increasing number of dogmatic theologians throughout the world" (p. 335, Martin Luther's Theology; A Contemporary Interpretation). But this is not something which he approves of. He describes as "one of the grandiose blunders of the more recent history of both philosophy and theology" (p. 339)!

He believes that the doctrine of the Trinity is "properly located neither as a bland addition nor in the middle as just one dogmatic theme among many, but correctly in the middle and correctly at the end" (p.334). The reason for this is that "the triune nature of God can only be comprehended only as an unfolding of the pure gospel" (p.335 - reminds me of the title to Tim Chester's Theology Network, "The good news of the Trinity"). He sees a number of problems if we start the doctrine of the Trinity. E.g:

• "if one proceeds in such a way, one will come dangerously close to... a brand of speculation that ignores time and the situation" (p.335)
• it "ignores or minimizes the problem of unfaith" (p.335)
• it has no place for the sufferer's experience of God as his seeming enemy, or take seriously the "reality of evil".

The basic problem though is that those who want to see the Trinity placed at the beginning see what is first in theology as the most fundamental. They are always concerned that we fit what follows to what comes before, and that much theology has fit the Trinity into the procrustean bed of a Unitarian view of God. However, a Lutheran who believes in law and then Gospel believes that what follows is the more fundamental. The Lutheran believes the good news is a surprise.

Bayer believes that we should begin with "'general' teaching about God", but not because he thinks that the Trinity is subsidiary. He has no love for the God who is not Trinity. "The God who comes to us apart from being the triune God, who is purely and completely love, 'looks on,' and has for us the grimace of the devil" (p.338). General teaching about God, even a monotheistic God, is something that belongs to the non-Christian and will be left behind in eternity.

The distinction between what is involved in the teaching about the Trinity and "general" teaching about God [...] is encountered in faith and in the hope that this distinction will be removed, along with the distinction between law and gospel, in the eschaton. The the triune God - he alone - will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28). Then we also will no longer be assailed by the oppressive, incomprehensible hiddenness that weighs us down even to the point of our death. It will be consumed by open love which itself cannot be comprehended, which will free us from its power and which comes to us conclusively already now in the gospel.

The end that we believe in and hope for, because of the love that has come to us and has been promised to us - the consummation of the work of creation by the triune God - is misinterpreted with regard to its true character when it is claimed that it exists as a timeless principle of knowledge and existence. Its universality cannot be demonstrated in the abstract, not even with theoretical means linked to the Trinity; one cannot apply its truths to every circumstance one can postulate and treat it as an a priori. (pp.339-340)

Glen and others (hi Glen!) are driven by their conviction that we should start all our thinking about God with the Trinity to argue that the Trinity was fully understood by the OT saints. Hence the regular 'Angel of the Lord' etc debates. But while a Lutheran would admit that the Trinity was seen in the OT, just as the Gospel was preached in the OT, they would also want to retain a distinction because:

just as the chief teaching of the New Testament is really the proclamation of grace and peace through the forgiveness of sins in Christ, so the chief teaching of the Old Testament is really the teaching of the laws, the showing up of sin, and the demanding of good. (Martin Luther, Preface to the Old Testament)

For Oswald Bayer there is always a shape and a story to the Bible and to our lives. He sees those who start with the doctrine of the Trinity as flattening the contours of this story, and so missing out on the depths and the heights of the Bible's message about God.

... I must confess its shook up all my thinking. Who knows how it will all settle again.

[A few asides: (a) it is interesting to note that Karl Barth was led the way in both making the doctrine of the Trinity at the beginning of theology, and in arguing that we should deal with Gospel then law. (b) It is also interesting how those who start with the Trinity always seem (IMHO) to be struggling to not say that creation and redemption were necessary for God. (c) In The Cruciality of the Cross PT Forsyth argues that the Atonement (i.e. the Gospel) drives us to the Incarnation, not the other way round. But it could be equally said of the doctrine of the Trinity. The Gospel drives us to the Trinity from our point of view, even if the Trinity is what leads to the Gospel from God's point of view.]

I see law and Gospel everywhere!

Cole Sear: I see dead people law and Gospel.

Malcolm Crowe: In your dreams?

[Cole shakes his head no]

Malcolm Crowe: While you're awake?

[Cole nods...]

Malcolm Crowe: How often do you see them?

Cole Sear: All the time. They're everywhere.

It is starting to feel that way....

This evening at church the preacher argued that there were two essential attitudes for prayer:

1. helplessness
2. faith

Law and Gospel, I thought. You can view everything through that lens!

Wheels in motion

Charles Simeon on Calvinist v. Arminian systems in Scripture:

"The author is disposed to think that the Scripture system is a of a broader and more comprehensive character than some very dogmatical theologians are inclined to allow; and that, as wheels in a complicated machine may move in opposite directions and yet subserve one common end, so may truths apparently opposite be perfectly reconcilable with each other and equally subserve the purpose of God in the accomplishment of man's salvation. The author feels it impossible to avow too distinctly that it is an invariable rule with him to endeavour to give to every portion of the Word of God its full and proper force, without considering what scheme if favours, or whose system it is likely to advance."

(p.79, cited in HCG Moule, Charles Simeon)

I'm not sure how helpful the machine analogy is for Calvinism v. Arminian interpretations of the bible. But it is a very helpful way of thinking about how Scripture works more generally. In particular how it works as law and Gospel. Law and Gospel in Scripture work against each other in some ways, but as part of the whole work together for a common end. If we try and force one of the cogs to work in the same way as the other cogs the whole machine will malfunction.

Another reason I like the analogy is because it is a description of Scripture which is full of movement. I think that the Bible is a book full of movement from one truth to another. From one feeling to another.

Sunshine through the clouds

A fictional preacher on why we should preach the law:

This despair over sin is after all a part of the Spirit's enlightenment. Actually one sees more clearly all the while, though one is looking down at the dark pools of evil in the slough of sinful corruption. But it is important to look deeply into it, for one will otherwise imagine that it is possible to get across it by oneself. So one makes a few hops from hummock to hummock, but is soon mired. At the very worst, one does not even dare to admit that one is stuck fast, but claims that one is already across, only because one is no longer in the company of the self-secure sinners on the farther shore.

(p.121, Bo Giertz, The Hammer of God)

... and on why we shouldn't stop there:

We have thundered like the storm, we have bombarded with the heaviest mortars of God's law in an attempt to break down the walls of sin. And that was surely right. I still load my gun with the best powder when I aim at unrepentance. But we had almost forgotten to let the sunshine of the gospel shine through the clouds. Our method has been to destroy all carnal security by our volleys, but we have left it to the souls to build something new with their own resolutions and their own honest attempts at amending their lives. In that way Henrik, it is never finished. We have not become finished ourselves. Now I have instead begun to preach about that which is finished, about that which was built on Calvary and which is a safe fortress to come to when the thunder rolls over our sinful heads.

(p.122-123, ibid)

Law and Gospel in the whole bible

Feel free to pass over this post as I do bang on about it a lot. I just wanted to note down this quotation because otherwise I won't be able to find it again:

The whole of Scripture is in some parts law, in others gospel. The books of Moses in some sections propound the law, in others the gospel, and moreover the gospel is concealed in the very law itself. For what can you find more evangelical than that promise which the Spirit of God added as the etiology of the First Commandment: "Showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments" (Deut. 5:10)? And see how suddenly Moses is transformed from lawgiver to evangelist, that is, a herald of grace and mercy, when he says in Ex. 34:6 f.: "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast lover and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty." Try to find a more evangelical pasage in the whole New Testament [...]

In like manner, Christ expounds law, for grace cannot be preached without law. [...]

Often, to be sure, Christ also preaches law, because without law sin cannot be recognized and unless we experience sin, we shall not understand the power and fullness of grace. Therefore, both law and gospel ought to be preached at the same time, and both sin and grace ought to be made clear.

(pp. 73-77, 'Loci Communes' (1521) in LCC: Melanchthon and Bucer)

Three meanings of the word 'law'

I think there would be more light and less heat if in discussions on the law people defined their terms. I think there are three main meanings of 'the law'. The trouble is people import concepts from one to another. Here are my three:

1. The Torah

2. Commands

3. God's word working death

The law [1] contains, but is not exclusively, law [2] which usually functions as law [3] to cause us to run to the Gospel.

The Torah is the Mosaic Covenant which contained both commands and promises. And the promises are not all conditional!

Commands are found not just in the Mosaic Covenant but throughout the bible; even Galatians. They can condemn us because they reveal our sin (2nd use of the law), but inherently they are good and so can help reveal how we should live once we have been saved (3rd use of the law).

God's word working death can come through commands (using the 2nd use of the law) but not exclusively (it can also come through phrases like 'Christ died for my sins' - see here) God's word working death is opposed to his word working life. But everlasting life can only be found by going through death. This is the meaning of 'law' in the phrase 'law and gospel' if that phrase is used in its true sense.

A superabundance of positives

My previous post was sparked by this great passage from Oswald Bayer:

When Luther emphasizes that the law, as it functions, is there already, already determining human existence - as sinful existence - he certainly acknowledges thereby that it in fact precedes the gospel, but not that it has ultimate priority over the gospel. The actual superiority of the gospel remains unaffected [...] If the gospel is considered to be nothing other than the defeat of evil and sin, one runs a risk of minimizing the truth about creation. But Luther sees the work of God already in his creation, when he gives gifts without having to, coming solely by the grace of God, and in that sense already "evangelical." As the means for dispensing the new creation, the gospel has a superabundance of positives, nothing like the way it is described when it is understood exclusively in the context of ways to deal with the negative.

In that the law brings an awareness of unbelief, it presumes the existence of faith and the gospel, materially and logically. For unfaith, as a turning toward false gods, does not work death and destruction in and of itself; that happens in, with, and under the turning away from the true, only, good God. Unfaith is sin because of its rejection of the eternal fellowship promised by God. It is due to rebellion against such fellowship, and thus is rebellion against the gospel, if it is correct that the preamble of the Decalogue - God's self-introduction and self-communication - is pure gospel. In the same way the threat of death (Gen. 2:17) can really be understood only in relation to the preceding promise of life and free provision of gifts (Gen. 2:16).

(p.62-63, Oswald Bayer, Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation)

Interesting that he sees the sequence as determined by whether we are thinking in terms of creation and redemption. Interesting also that he describes unbelief in sacramental language (in, with, and under) as communicating death and destruction.